The Workshed

[Alan The Magic Goose 14]

So I can export the meshes fine on my end. You don't have the "compile on export" checkbox enabled do you?

 

I noticed a few unrelated issues:

 

Your mesh names are possibly too long. I'm unsure what the maximum the MDL format can cope with is, but I would suggest capping them to 15 characters.

 

You have uncollapsed Unwrap UVW modifiers in virtually all your mesh stacks. I'm unsure if NWMax will handle that, so I would advise moving all those modifiers underneath their respective skin modifier and then right clicking and choosing "Collapse To" in order to bake in your changes.

 

Your scale seems to be an order of magnitude or more off. I suspect in-game you will have a titan on your hands. Did you do some sort of scaling of the rig to match your mesh? A rescale units of around 0.039 seems to get it back into the ballpark.

 

Here's a revised ASCII - https://www.darthparametric.com/files/kotor/misc/Goose_VisasAssassin_Rescaled_ASCII.7z

They are possibly too long.

I assumed that wouldn't matter, as most modding tools I've used have just auto renamed meshes to whatever the parent is. But in the future, I will do that.

Cutting corners for time is a bad habit anyway.

 

I also didn't know about the UVW modifiers at all until I started using them for this project, so that's good to know.

 

And as for scale, I didn't touch the scale at all. So if it is off I have no Idea how it got to be that way.

I did use move on some of the bones to get them to fit a little more neatly on the geometry for bending and such but only by like a point or two.

The whole development of this I tried really hard to keep the scale appropriate.

 

Thanks for pointing those out and making those changes. You're the best. 

 

So is there any further editing I would need to do before moving on or are we in business?

[DarthParametric 3,795]

You should set Max's two unit settings to cm for working with KOTOR models.

 

Customize -> Units Setup -> Display Units Size

 

Customize -> Units Setup -> System Unit Setup -> System Unit Scale

 

Moving bones is inadvisable, you should always modify your mesh to suit the rig, not the other way around. In broader terms, any moving, scaling, rotating you do on any object in Max needs to be followed up by a Reset XForm (reset transforms) operation in order to "bake in" the new transform. This will apply a modifier to the object stack which once again needs to be collapsed. Not doing so will lead to headaches down the line.

 

Also, one thing I forgot to do was to adjust the diffuse/ambient values of your material. Max sets them around 50% by default, so your textures will appear dull in the game unless you change that. You can easily edit the ASCII in a text editor. Under your individual mesh nodes you'll see something like:

 

node skin Visas18
  parent VisasAssassin
  position 0 0 0
  orientation 0 0 0 0
  scale 1
  alpha 1
  selfillumcolor 0 0 0
  diffuse 0.587999999523163 0.587999999523163 0.587999999523163
  ambient 0.587999999523163 0.587999999523163 0.587999999523163
  render 1
  shadow 0
  specular 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
  shininess 0.000000
  wirecolor 1 1 1
  bitmap MiscDiffuse3

Change the diffuse and ambient to

  diffuse 1.0 1.0 1.0
  ambient 1.0 1.0 1.0

You can do a find and replace, but the values for the 3 textures are different so possibly it may be easier to import it back into Max and re-export.

 

Speaking of textures, I said early on that ideally you want a single texture, especially if you want texture variants. The game can handle a model with multiple textures, but not for anything that requires variants (or an appearance.2da texture override). I imagine in this instance, the same as the vanilla Visas outfit, it doesn't matter, but it's something to keep in mind for future projects.

 

Edit: I realised that the version I posted earlier had completely screwed UVs. MDLOps up to its old tricks again. I fixed that up, and adjusted the diffuse/ambient values while I was at it. I also compiled it and tested it in-game. I noticed that your legs still have a few UV issues, although I don't think this is the fault of MDLOps, rather just an edge texture vert or two that needs adjustment. Also, you will need some additional geometry to cap the ends of your boot and gloves because of backface culling, and the neck/shoulders area may need some adjustment if you want it to mate with the vanilla head (probably not relevant if you are making a new head).

 

 

Fixed binary and ASCII model - https://www.darthparametric.com/files/kotor/misc/Goose_VisasAssassin_Fixed_UVs.7z

[Alan The Magic Goose 14]

The world is a better place because of people like you.

So are you referring to the vert it looks like on the stage right leg on the side of the knee?

Also with backface issues, I can do that right away. I just didn't know how far we were going with the geometry as I said in my initial post.
And I guess I figured that while she's in motion it wouldn't be noticeable.

But I can knock that out of the park asap.

http://i.imgur.com/fs4JRpC.png

^^Also, we can make this a comic book and call it canon. EZ.
I do comic art stuff on the side sometimes. *wink*

[DarthParametric 3,795]

You have a degenerate UV face on the outer side of the knee area, so you need to pull the offending vert out a bit, something like this:

 

 

You'll presumably have to adjust your texture to match.

 

As to the backface culling, while it might not be noticeable in motion, remember half the game she is probably standing around. It's very noticeable when she is idle. So as to not destroy your existing skins and UVs, I'd just create some copies of the glove and boot meshes, then extrude out from the edge loop and delete the original polys. You should be able to form an inverted cone shape with a bit of lip where it meets the original mesh that will do the job.

[DarthNorah 0]

Such fine art work, will be downloading. This is great now she will be much better (in my opinion) evil nun was not that impressive but this is awesome.

[Alan The Magic Goose 14]

You have a degenerate UV face on the outer side of the knee area, so you need to pull the offending vert out a bit...

 

You'll presumably have to adjust your texture to match.

 

As to the backface culling, while it might not be noticeable in motion, remember half the game she is probably standing around. It's very noticeable when she is idle. So as to not destroy your existing skins and UVs, I'd just create some copies of the glove and boot meshes, then extrude out from the edge loop and delete the original polys. You should be able to form an inverted cone shape with a bit of lip where it meets the original mesh that will do the job.

Sorry for the late reply.

 

So, would I have to re-weight the offending meshes including the degenerate UV leg? Max seems touchy about collapsing these elements and retaining weights for some reason.

 

If that's the case it should be no trouble. Just an extra thirty minutes or so to re-rig.

 

Edit: I can also add the straps now. It seems people were against the variants idea which is cool. I may just make alternate outfits for stuff like the Zal Shey Armor at some point.

 

Depends on your thoughts really. I appreciate all the help thusfar.

[DarthParametric 3,795]

If you collapse the entire stack, then yes, your weights are destroyed. That's why you move the Unwrap UVW modifier underneath the Skin modifier, then right click on it and select Collapse To. That will collapse the Unwrap UVW modifier but leave the skin intact. Of course if you add new geometry then that will necessitate reskinning, which is why I suggested adding the caps as separate meshes. Depends on how much work you want to do.

[Alan The Magic Goose 14]

Hey guys, sorry for the late reply, I'm working on a pretty huge project right now for work and it may be a minute before I get back to my current KOTOR II projects.
But promise I'll be back in the mix soon. Hang in there, guys.